Why do Little Dixie battle flags still flap in some Missouri cemeteries? What on earth is a jayhawker? Or a bushwhacker? Why does the name “Quantrill,” for some Missourians, evoke a legacy almost equal to that of the raging abolitionist John Brown on the Kansas side? The history behind all of this speaks to divisions that persist in the Kansas City area.
Westport traces its history back to December 28, 1831, when the Baptist missionary Isaac McCoy arrived to work with the Shawnee Indians who had been displaced by the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
A makeshift Union prison in Kansas City, Missouri collapsed on August 13, 1863, killing four of its female prisoners and enraging proslavery Missouri bushwhackers who would attack Lawrence eight days later.
Originally, Kansas City was little more than a landing along the Missouri River, where travelers disembarked to travel to the town of Westport and the Santa Fe Trail a few miles to the south.
The Pacific House Hotel opened near the present-day City market in Kansas City in 1860, just prior to the beginning of the Civil War. In 1863, it became the District of the Border headquarters.
In 1857, construction began on the Broadway Hotel, but the coming of the Civil War prompted the Union Army to board over the construction site and use it as a cavalry barracks and "Camp Union" garrison.
A makeshift Union prison holding female relatives and associates of proslavery Missouri bushwhackers (by order of General Thomas Ewing Jr.) collapses, killing four of the women.
Five companies of Union soldiers march into Kansas City to secure it for the Union. Their construction of Camp Union on the future site of the Coates House Hotel, plus a continuous garrison, ensures that Kansas City remains under Union control throughout the war.